Poetry online

Although finding poetry online is still a hit-and-miss affair, more poetry is available online all the time, ranging from the ancient to the new. Often, the online world is the easiest way to access classical poetry. Increasingly often, it is the only way to access international poetry, unless you live in the basement of a vast library. That would not, of course, be a bad fate, although the attic would have a better view. Even so, you'd have to be online, because the net is certainly the best way to access visual poetry, bar none. Here are a few sites for online poetry:

• Canadian poetry
  
• American poetry
  
• Audio poetry
  
• International poetry
  
• Visual poetry

Canadian poetry.

• Y Press hosts an Online Guide to the Writers of Canada. The resource is in progress, and I see that many writers are missing. They are open to suggestions to help complete their site, and are soliciting biographies of listed writers.
• University of Toronto Library provides links to Canadian Poets, Poetry Journals and Magazines, Canadian Poetry Presses and many other Canadian poetry sites.
• Canadian Poetry Web Links- Literary Database provides an annotated list of resources on the web.
• Canada Dreams provides a selection of work by some of Canada's promising young poets.
• Yet another way to reach the virtual poetry world is the University of Toronto's  Canadian Poetry site.
• The National Library's New Wave Canada exhibit displays Canadian poetry publications from the 1960s.
• The Alsop Review features much fine poetry, including almost all the writing of Canada's J. Michael Yates.
• Other Voices is a premier Canadian feminist magazine from Alberta.
• The Greenboathouse Review is an elegant, web-savy publisher of cutting edge, precise, and lyrical poetry, from Vernon and Victoria, B.C. Look for great things here. If you've thought that poetry might be losing some of its intelligence, go to the greenboathouse. You won't be disappointed.
• For a comprehensive web site of 600 Quebec authors, Le centre de documentation virtuel sur la litérature Québécoise should be your destination. L'ÎLE est un site unique qui met en ligne les biographies et bibliographies de plus de 600 auteurs québécois, et quelque 170 dossiers de presse.
• Vancouver's Seven Sisters Writing Group host an elegantly-designed website of their poetry.
• New Canadian online poetry journal at http://www.barbitos.com/

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• Atlantic Monthly's Poetry Online has a good selection of contemporary poetry, much in RealAudio format.
• The Poetry Daily provides a new and very accessible poem every day, along with plenty of poetry news. You can access the service on-line or have it delivered to your email. In the divided world of American poetry, this material is the antidote to the Electronic Poetry centre, and vice versa.
• The Electronic Poetry Center brings together several literary sites including the Poetics-L poetry discussion list. Centred at the State University of New York at Buffalo, under the direction of Charles Bernstein, it is the centre for a L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E-based writing philosophy grounded in poetics rather than writing itself. The results are sometimes scintillating, sometimes strange, often innovative, and always challenging.
• NYCPoetry is always seeking new work, guest editors, and reviewers. In this, their official launch issue, they present Galway Kinnell, James Regan, and the Carnegie Hall Poets of lyR.
• Native American Authors Online, from 4 nations including Mohawk and Ojibway, and including some selections in Real Audio.
• Poetry Slam Inc is proud to call themselves the official Slam Poetry Site. They compare slam poetry to a literary boxing match. There are links, contests, a chat room, a slam bus (!), and more. Pow.
• The Beat Page is a one-stop shop for all things to do with Beat Poetry. If Beat's your thing, this should be your home page. There is a gallery, too.

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Audio poetry.

• New American Radio. Ok, I know, these are radio dramas, but they are radio shows of an incredibly high calibre, all of them innovative, and almost all of them are poetry pure and simple. I find this a very exciting site and return to it often. There are scripts to browse through, samples to listen to, inspirations to gain.
• Winner of the 1997 CASE Award for Radio Programming, LINEbreak is a series of half-hour length programs with contemporary writers and artists, including Robert Creeley. LINEbreak showcases a broad range of authors from around the country and around the world, from famous novelists and screenwriters whose work is regularly reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice and The New York Review of Books, to revolutionary and avant-garde poets, performance artists and video artists whose work is often neglected by the mainstream media. The series is hosted and co-produced by poet and professor Charles Bernstein, and is produced and directed by Martin Spinelli. The shows are available online, for download and in Real Audio.
• Audio of poetry online, at SUNY Buffalo.
• Here's a site to make my categories crack. Fluxus is a treasure store of visual and audio poetry, and poetry scores, photos, performance, installion, sculpture, iconifications, collages, dances, processes, and, oh wonder of wonders, Art by Sense and Art by NonSense. Splendid!
• The Sound poetry and Music of Jaap Blonk is showcased here. Check out the colourful and intricate poetry scores and the visual poetry.
• For audio clips of the Poetry of Vietnam Audio , click on over here.
• Jack Straw Productions is the voice of The Audio Arts Centre of the Pacific Northwest in Seattle.
• The Ann Arbor Poetry Forum broadcasts poetry and spoken word via real audio.
• Audio Poetry and Archives from the Mining Co provides links to Audio poetry around the web.
• On the Web of Poets you will hear contemporary Australian Poetry Read by the Poets.
• The Academy of American Poets has a listening booth with many, many, many poets reading, allowing you to search by poet or by poem title.
• Jacket Magazine has archived a reading by Basil Bunting of his masterpiece Briggflatts.
• The Cortland Review is an online poetry journal, in audio format. They let you read along. First class.
• ubuweb is for visual, sound, and concrete poetry. The site of sites.
• Ozpoet, the gateway to the web for Australian poets, hosts a few readings.
• Mehfil-e-Mushaira presents Urdu Poetry in audio.
• The Electronic Poetry Centre maintains a huge list of audio poetry.
• Poetry in the Arts is a literary nonprofit organization in Austin, Texas.

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International poetry.

• lyrikline.org is the platform on the internet on which poems are available to listen to, and to read both in their original languages and various translations: a concert of verse in the voices and languages of the authors.
• poetry links @ drowningman.net, a comprehensive directory of literary publications, from small presses up to the most famous with an emphasis on poetry links. Over 300 print journals are listed. Most pages contain submission guidelines and some contain additional links.
• Poetry International Web This ambitious, large-scale project is a collaboration between the Dutch Poetry International Foundation and editors and literary organizations in a number of countries. At least four new countries are added every year. Includes poems in the original languages and English translation, news, reviews, essays, interviews, columns and links.
• Poemhunter claims to offer "thousands of poems" from poets all around the world.
• Cuba's Nicolas Guillen is highlighted (lavishly) on this site.
• Nine Argentinian poets are showcased here at Grupo Literario, along with a collection of links to Argentinian poetry.
• The Scottish Poetry Library is the place for poetry in Scotland, for the regular reader, the serious student or the casual browser. Since its foundation in 1984 it has amassed a remarkable collection of written works, as well as tapes and videos. The emphasis is on 20th century poetry written in Scotland, in Scots, Gaelic and English. Older Scottish poetry is also to be found, and contemporary works from almost every part of the world.
• You have to love it. The Scottish Poetry Library hosts this page of Troubador poetry, most of it in the original occitan. Maybe it's because of the holy grail, but it's welcome.
• The EPC Gallery displays visual poetry online.
• The Bartleby Project has a large archive of out-of-copyright literature available to download or read online.
• For a view of an exciting poetic culture we rarely see much of in Canada, check out South African Poets Online. Here you can find a massive selection of works from South African Poets, South African Poetry Journals, and links to poetry from Africa, and African-American poetry. Some days the site loads. Some days it doesn't. Sorry to say.
• Or you can go to the university of Alberta and look at their African Writing Poets links. They have tried to gather all African writing resources in one place.
• Or you can check out the Francophone African Poets in English Translation site from the University of Florida, which gives samples of the poetry of 11 Franco-African poets, in translation.
• Here's a big collection of Lithuanian Poetry, in English translation.
• Moving South, here's a big collection of Persian Poetry, from the ancient to the modern.
• The Art of Europe site has a good selection of some of the best poetry written over there since the renaissance.
• Many literary works can be ordered in electronic formats from the Literature Online site known as Lion.
• Bibliomania Free World Literature.
• A traditional haiku site is Shiki's Haiku World. Some of the translations are a little wooden, to say the least, but Japanese originals are, refreshingly, included and the site features links to a large number of Haiku and Tanka pages, as well as mailing lists for Haiku and Tanka, and a workshop list for Haiku.
• World Wide Arts Resources has many literary links.Their (unsorted) poetry links are a pretty good guide to the general world of poetry on the web. For a guide to the amazing and huge world of amateur poetry on the web, this is as good a place to start as any.
• Perimeter is an online magazine of writing of quality by the prisoners of HMP Channings Wood. A unique site!
• Irish Poetry and the universe of writing from the Notre Dame Review has some fantastic poetry, written in North American, fusing Irish and American tradition. This is a powerful site.
• Good things come in threes. For a strong collection of poetry from Brasil, go here, or here, or, for more experimental stuff, here. Wonderful!
• It may not be Fitzgerald's translation, but Homer's Iliad is online in Butler's translation, every last word.
• The Tower of Babel maintains an extensive list of literary archives on the net.
• Ygrdasil is an ezine with both a North American and European editorial staff. You can view issues online or download them and view them offline. A spanish and an audio edition are also available.
• DADAmag is a lush,wild, eclectic Italian magazine of literature and the arts, in Italian. Here is their page of literary links. It's worth a look, even if you don't speak Italian. I tell you, I'm tempted to learn it.
• Want all that info in English? Seek no further. Dada Online delivers.
• Dutch Poets from Epibreren bring you there work, in Dutch, English, German and Danish, on this site.
• Norwegian Writer's Web. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it! This Norwegian site not only provides an English doorway to Norwegian writing, but has links to sites on 1450 writers from around the world.
• Read Me magazine provides this extensive alphabeticized listing of links to a vast number of twentieth century authors from around the globe.
•  A Online Festival of French Poetry presents a selection of poems (translated into English) from an American tour by a group of French poets, with links to videos of their readings. This is a great site, put up by the French Embassy, both as a celebration and as a call for interested publishers.
• The Labyrinth library offers online versions of Dante, in Italian, as does this site of Italian literature, which also offers the writing of many, many other poets across the Italian centuries.
• Ancient Mesoamerican Writing presents the fascinating symbolism and iconography of the writing systemswhich evolved in ancient Mesoamerica. Developing independently of Mediterranean or Asian cultures, there are several different types of pre-conquest writing that represent a unique intellectual achievement. They are: Aztec, Borgia Group, Maya, Mixtec, and Most Ancient.
• Vietnamese Poetry: The Classical Tradition is an essay on Vietnamese verse, with many poems interwoven throughout.In English.
• Avesta: Zoroastrian Archives presents the texts, many in verse, of the oldest of the revealed world-religions. Old stuff, indeed.
• Prehispanic Literature of Mexico. Vital to the work of seeing the world whole.
• Welcome to Aashi'yaana , a home page for Urdu poetry and Ghazals.
• Palestinian Poetry showcases Palestinian Poetry. Another candidate for the well-named website of the year award.
• Similarly, Belarusian Poetry is show-cased here.
• And Bengali Poetry in English Translation here.
• Not to be outdone, here's a Bulgarian Poetry Archive. The interface is a bit messy, but if you rub the poems on your sleeve they come up with a good shine.
• And Arabic Literature, has Arabic Poems, which is good.
• Here's a beautiful site: 100 Japanese Poems by 100 Poets delivers 3 versions of each poem: calligraphy, transliteration, and translation into English.
• Nepali Poems are proudly presented here.
• In Persia, multi-genre poetics are old hat. Check it out at Persian Poetry, Poetics, and Poetic Art.
• Albanian Literature Pages give us Albanian poetry.
• The Turkish Poetry Homepage presents the poetry of that most poetic of countries (Well, next to Canada, perhaps).
• Native Web: Native Poetry Online This aboriginal cultural search engine has compiled a page of native poetry.
• For a larger collection of native poetry, go to Native American Poets.
• Arbol Veloz (Swift Tree) is a CD-ROM from Uruguay, with poetry and video, in English and Portugese. A haunting and very spiritual sample poem is available online.
• Ever tried to write a ghazal? You can find lots of models, samples & background information among the ghazal links gathered by About's Hindi/Urdu Language Guide, Patrick Jost.
• Contemporary Greek Poetry in translation comes from Ariistotle University of Thessaloniki.Greek literature magazines and journals containing contemporary Greek poetry in translation are presented with sample poems selected by their editors.
• The German Band Zentrifugal provides a doorway into the world of Slam Poetry, combining Hip Hop, Rap, and Slam.

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•   First Stop. Kaldron Magazine has been publishing visual poetry since 1979. This is the Grand daddy of them all. There is quite a collection of Canadian poetry's visual champ, b.p. nichol's stuff here, as well as scores from Toronto's The Four Horsemen, as well as many other poems and an archive of essential visual poetry criticism.
• V I S P O L A N G U ( I M ) A G E This Visual poetry site, includes interactive audio, sound poems, interviews, graphic/text poems, writings on new media and writings in new media.
• Artistas Postales has links to a number of prominent post card poets, with samples of their work. An essential art form.
• So, feeling like it's party time and you're squeezed into the kitchen, with nothing to do but make magnetic poetry with the refrigerator? Well, it's your lucky day, because your computer can now serve the same purpose, without the problems of magnetism. Cut-Up is an online magnetic poetry site. It does require java. Old browsers and 386's just limping along, well...there's still the fridge.
• Eduardo Kac makes Holopoetry, out of holograms, not to mention Transgenic Art (poetic works and projects in genetic engineering), Interactive Works (Dialogical, telepresence and biotelematic pieces), Telepresence Art, Telecommunications Art (Links and networks before the Web), Media Poetry and Language Art, multimedia works, images, performance work, visual poetry, and mixed media work, and he has posted it for us. Don't let the terminology turn you off. There is exciting and visually-stunning work here.
• Indra's NetÝ: Hologography. These pages are a brief introduction to some of the work in 'machine modulated poetry' which John Cayley has been developing since the late 1970s. Current work may be seen as part of a wide-ranging project with the general title Indra's Net or Hologography. The definition of the latter term is closely modelled on that for 'holography' in the Oxford English Dictionary: Hologography. A pattern of language produced when the words of a given text are glossed, paraphrased, etymologized, acrostically or otherwise transformed, and such transformations are allowed to interfere with the words of the given text; a set of rules, a machine or a computer program which defines or displays such a pattern.
• Virtual Poetry, in Spanish, with English explanations.Imagine: liberation from the book and all its confines....
• Individual Poetry Video artists can be accessed from the long series of links at the bottom of this page.
• Robert Kendall is a leading practioner and theoretician of hypertext poetry, and he gives his all here.
• Selections from Visual Poems 1967 - 1970 by leading visual poet Clemente Padin. A must-see site.
• S. Holzbauer´s advancedpoet x:  The Squaring of Words and other Visualisations is a unique site, in which all letters of the alphabet are given a numerical code, which is keyed to a colour. Out of this, Holzbauer constructs words as squares of variously-coloured blocks. It is an entertaining way of revealing some properties of the words themselves.
• The Peter Finch Archive hosts this massive collection of Welsh Literary Links.
• - Textlandschaften (Textlandscapes) Torsten Kulick and Ines Eck offer graphics and photos alongside literary works and essays.

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